Page 135 of Grim

She shook her fur as she rose from the ground, her body was becoming tired and the adrenaline from her wolf’s shift was wearing off. I wasn’t sure how much longer she would last in her wolf form.

I moved my claws up to his face, watching the black speckled dust fall to the ground. I gouged his eyes out, but as soon as one was scratched, it healed once again.

Frustrated, I gripped his neck with my teeth, breaking his neck. I wrung him like a doll, shaking him violently. I let go, and he flew, striking the support beam across the room.

The fire roared around us. Our men were long gone besides Locke. He stood in the corner, covered in blood from the carnage. I didn’t have time to check for my brothers. Leif’s concentration was pinned on the fae and my mate.

We leaped to the other side of the room before he could stand. His back hit the burning beam—one of the last beams able to support the enormous warehouse.

Journey opened her maw. A silver-like substance dripped from her fangs. A venom, but like no venom I had ever seen before.

Idris chuckled, his hand wiping his brow. His black suit was ripped to shreds, his white shirt covered with the black blood tainted with venom from Journey’s previous bite. She would have to end him.

My heavy breathing was no match for the scorching flames. I looked back to check on Locke. He saluted with two fingers, pointing to the doorway. This was where he said goodbye, his body, his wolf too far gone to save him from the flames.

I wanted to make Idris suffer more for all the lives he had destroyed. Shifters, humans, and anyone else that suffered at Idris’s hands. He was cruel and unjust, even his own kind rejected him, even his own mate.

He threatened to take what was mine. He wanted to take her, use her, dispose of her. What kind of heartless fool would make anyone less than him suffer?

A monster.

No male would dare take my mate, my love, from me. Over my dead, fucking body.

I leaped forward, my fangs bared millimeters from his face. He couldn’t do anything to me. His runes were gone, his magic was being sucked from his body by whatever venom Journey had previously inflicted. She saved our asses, all of us.

My mate.

The fae’s head tilted back against the burning beam, his hair instantly catching fire. It slowly crept up his hair and onto his scalp. Idris ticked his jaw in annoyance and watched as my mate slowly padded forward.

Her eyes gleamed with excitement, her wolf not blinking once as she approached. The blue moon on her fur shone brightly, and she lowered her head for him to look.

“It’s been a long time since I’ve seen that symbol,” he gasped for breath. “I thought the rejected were to be all forgotten.”

“They are not forgotten. They willhave a second chance,” Journey spoke to me. “Every one of them will be reborn to find the other half of their soul.”

Idris coughed, his mouth dripping silver droplets on his burning lapel. “If that’s the case, then I too, will get my second chance.”

My eyes widened. He could hear her.

“If Hades permits you to be reborn,” Journey snapped. “Which I doubt you will be.”

“My mate will need a soul that matches hers. Who else would she be bonded to? Did your precious goddess tell you that? My mate was already destined to be mine!”

My mate’s heart fluttered, her bravado shrinking rapidly. I snapped my jaw around his head, cracking the bones that held his brain. The liquid tainted my mouth, and Leif gagged at the taste.

I could feel Idris’s body trying to heal, trying to survive as long as he could. Journey tore into his chest with her claws and fangs until her muzzle was coated in his black blood.

The silver of her venom intertwined with the onyx liquid, as the marbled liquid pooled on the floor.

Beams around us fell faster, the walkways of the warehouse falling forward. The glass windows burst, and the smell of burning flesh caught my nose.

By the time I looked back, Idris was nothing but a large pool of tar. Journey dropped the heart of the beast that held her and so many captive for years and kicked it into the flames.

My chest swelled, my nose nuzzling her dampened fur. Even with the fae blood, Leif and I could smell her strong musk.

I was so fucking proud of her, so damned proud. She’d gone from a human with a body so frail and sensitive to a damned warrior. All on her own, she completed the task all by herself—a feat I would still be upset about missing for years to come.

The beam where Idris laid, cracked. My senses told me it was time to go. The flames grew hot as I pulled on my mate’s scruff as she continued to look at the death she helped to bring about.

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